I don’t think they should necessarily have the sole deciding say in the matter. But I don’t think it’s been commented on yet that the person literally buying this feature for the site wants it to be called rengo.
It’s fine to celebrate the Japanese terms. (I certainly do!)
I want to point out that there are more than one way to celebrate that. For instance, there are two parts to every word: the sound and the meaning.
To take the word “keima” for example, the meaning directly refers to the shogi piece, which of course is analog to the chess knight. In a sense calling it “knight’s move” does honor the Japanese tradition. If we didn’t respect the Japanese, it might be called oblique jump or something unrelated.
If Rengo is plain Japanese for “Group go”, then calling it something to that effect still respects the Japanese tradition, just in a different way.
Bad precedent. If we can buy naming rights I’ll redirect my OGS subscription to name it Team Go >.<
I also just remembered that many English terms also make little sense to a beginner: why is a ladder called a ladder, and not the more appropriate stairs? Why do we call it an iron pillar? What’s a monkey jump or a tiger’s mouth?
Like I said, for me it’s not about tradition or about paying homage or anything. It’s about using the term that’s most likely understood by the most people who view it. On a Go site, the proper term for Rengo that will be immediately understood by most people, is Rengo.
Calling it differently would be similar to calling the Rook in chess a horizontal mover, and the bishop a diagonal mover, etc. Sure, it’s easier for a beginner to learn what the term refers to, and what the piece does, but it’s just confusing to anybody familiar with the standard chess terminology.
You keep saying that it will be understood by most people. Where is the data on that? Have you considered that many people that come here to OGS are newcomers to go? Not OGS Forum regulars and r/baduk subscribers?
nobody has ever requested that OGS will implement “Team Go” or “Group Go”.
Senseis redirects their “team go” page to the “Pair Go” page, and writes “The more general form, where players can be of any gender, is usually referred to as Rengo.”
Wikipedia itself mentions “rengo” as the proper name, and explains why Pair Go is something different
KGS calls it rengo
Like I said: we shouldn’t cater the term to absolute newcomers, just like why I don’t call chess pieces for what they do, but I call them with their proper name. It won’t help against confusion to call something by some non-standard name, it will at best extend the time before the newcomer learns the proper term, and at worst make the confusion larger if they think the two terms refer to different things.
@anoek What’s the current median rank for new accounts after 20 ranked matches suggest regarding this idea that “many people [who] come here are newcomers”?
Fair enough. They have asked for Pair Go though (and I assume they didn’t care about gender)
meh PandaNet calls it Pair Go
DGS calls it team-go (Rengo specifically for 2v2 ) (source)
Not even absolute newcomers. I mentioned playing Rengo once in my local Go club, and folks who’ve played longer than myself were like, “Sure! What is that?”
Not even absolute newcomers. I mentioned playing Rengo once in my local Go club, and folks who’ve played longer than myself were like, “Sure! What is that?”
I agree. I have several friends who play Go casually, and none of them would know what “Rengo” is about.
If possible I would suggest something like “Rengo (teams)” to clarify somewhat while keeping this name.
But the site itself is able to explain; granted, it doesn’t do that, but it could. You could click on the tab, and read some info about it there. Reasonable, the same should be true for the Joseki section, the puzzle section (of which I think the more usual “tsumego” is a more appropriate name, but let’s not get into that ), the ladder section, etc. They are all a bit mysterious now anyways.
There has been a lot of concern about beginners mentioned here.
Indeed, one method to assist them is to make terms as descriptive and intuitive as possible.
Another method is to make terms as specific as possible, so that when they don’t understand something (as is common for the newcomer experience in any field) they have nice precise search terms in which to query an engine or else a helpful user.
It’s fine for beginners to ask questions, I don’t think people step into a new discipline expecting all aspects of it to be self intuitive. I certainly don’t in any case.